


on witches and staircases

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Coming Out, Gen, Happy pride month, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I wrote this out of spite, Trans Character, Trans Neville Longbottom, fuck j k rowling, gender realization, i guess??, it barely comes up but shes black because i say so, not going to lie i wrote this with no idea where it was going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24638938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Neville accidentally walks up the Gryffindor girls' staircase and doesn't get thrown downaka that story where Hogwarts has trans people because I say so
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Neville Longbottom, neville longbottom & fay dunbar
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	on witches and staircases

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never written fanfiction before. This is out of spite and because it’s Pride month. Fuck J. K. Rowling. No beta because this is the hill I have decided to die on. Have I read or watched Harry Potter in years? Nope! Am I going to research anything for this? Nope! My universe now, I do what I want. If anyone is actually in character, I will be pleasantly surprised.
> 
> Harry Potter is owned by me and has never been owned by J. K. Rowling. All rights belong to me. All characters and situations belong to me. If she wants to take it up with me, then fistfight me yourself, coward.
> 
> CW: unintentional misgendering before the character comes out

The first time Neville tried to go up the girls’ staircase, it let him up without question. He hadn’t been thinking about it. Mostly he had just been thinking about getting Hermione to stop whatever mad scheme Harry and Ron were attempting to pull. After that mountain troll the three of them were always hanging out together, maybe she would be able to talk some sense into them. So when he arrived at the top panting, it took him a bit to understand why everyone was staring at him.

A second passed, and then another, and suddenly Lavender shrieked out, “Neville?”

“Uh, er, yes? I- that is- um, can I talk to Hermione?”

Hermione walked forward quickly. “This has something to do with Ron and Harry, doesn’t it.”

It wasn’t a question. Well, Neville was pretty sure it wasn’t a question. It didn’t sound like a question. Or maybe it was a question and he was supposed to answer oh no it was too long and he still hadn’t said anything w-

Hermione whirled around, grabbed something next to her bed (which she tucked into her robes) and took off. “I need to make sure they don’t get hurt, but after that I have questions!” she said, pointedly, and Neville just wanted to hide back in the greenhouse with Professor Sprout. He turned to follow her down the stairs, but one of the girls—Fay, maybe?—stopped him.

“Be careful going down, it might dump you out at the bottom.”

“Well he already made it to the top in one piece, so shouldn’t it let him down fine?” her friend shot back. Oh, Neville was a bad classmate, he couldn’t even remember their names.

“Um, well, thank you? I’ll, uh, try to be careful?”

With that he quickly turned tail and went down as fast as he could. Much to his relief, it both didn’t turn into a slide and there was no-one in the common room. He really didn’t want to have that discussion with someone.

After that, it wasn’t exactly that Neville was avoiding the Gryffindor girls per se. It’s just that he went out of his way to be as forgettable as possible. Unfortunately, since they shared all of the same classes, it didn’t really work out all that well.

A couple days later after potions class, Hermione called out to him and ran to catch up. Harry and Ron looked puzzled, but she brushed them off and said she’d meet them later for lunch.

“Hey, Neville! I have some questions for you.” She had that look in her eye she got whenever there was a particular problem that she had decided to figure out, or whenever Ron had challenged her and she wanted to prove him wrong. Neville wished he could melt into one of the pictures on the wall and disappear. They turned down an empty hall, and slowly the background chatter faded away. Hermione was practically bouncing on her feet.

“You know that no boys can actually go up that staircase, right? Harry and Ron tried it once and it dumped them out onto the common room floor.” Neville remembered that. They complained all evening. “Godric Gryffindor thought girls were more trustworthy than boys. Which isn’t to say that we actually are, but that’s why he enchanted the staircase to be like that. So how did you get up the staircase? Are you trans?”

Neville blinked at her. It took him a bit to process all that she had been saying.

“Wait- sorry, but- trans?” He just stared at her blankly.

“Oh, is that not something in the wizarding community? I’m not trans myself, but my parents told me it’s like you’re born in the wrong body and your insides don’t match your outsides.”

“In… er… in what way?”

“Like you’re a boy but you’re actually supposed to be a girl or you’re a girl but you’re actually supposed to be a boy.”

Something inside Neville shifted, but he wasn’t quite sure what.

“I, um, I’m not, uh sure?”

“I heard a lot of people don’t know that they’re trans until they’re older. Do you think there are magical ways to change your body? I know there are Polyjuice potions, but what about for trans people? Polyjuice potions wear off. Is there a magical surgery? Oh, is there a magical trans community?”

She stopped and then abruptly leaned forward. “Do you think there are other trans kids at this school? How many do you think? I’m not sure how many people are trans. Oh, I need to research this!”

She started to run off, but then turned around again. “I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry! My parents said that you should never out someone—that is, tell other people without their consent. But I want to talk about this again!”

Neville just stood there feeling like a tornado had ripped through the halls.

That evening at dinner, Hermione was too busy talking with Ron and Harry, but Fay and her friend Siobhán sat down on either side of Neville.

“Don’t worry, we made the others promise not to tell anyone.” Fay looked proud.

Siobhán smiled at him, kindly. “My brother’s like you. Or, I suppose the other way around. But we don’t have to talk about that now.”

“Yeah, what hobbies do you have? Oh, do you like Quidditch?”

Siobhán rolled her eyes. “That’s all she ever talks about.”

“Uh, well, I’m a bit, er, clumsy? So I’m, well, not very good at it.” Neville looked down at his hands, nervously twisting his fork.

“Oh, you don’t have to be good at it to enjoy it. Though I hope one day I can play on the house team. Do you have a favorite team? Mine is the Holyhead Harpies.”

She continued chatting happily, and gradually they moved on to other hobbies of theirs. Neville slowly started responding back, and Fay’s smile grew even wider. Fay was a pureblood, but Siobhán was a Muggle-born, so they spent some time talking about wizarding and Muggle society. By the time dinner was over, Neville was thoroughly enjoying himself. Even as the three made their way back to the common room, they continued chatting. This was quite possibly the longest Neville had ever spent talking with one of his classmates. They parted ways with a promise to meet up again for breakfast, and Neville went to bed smiling.

The next few days, Neville spent more time hanging out with Fay and Siobhán. They didn’t bring up the stairs again immediately, but Neville knew they had questions on it. Hermione did too, he could tell, but she was spending most of her time helping Harry and Ron with homework or borrowing books from the library. It seemed like she was busy with something else. He’d been doing a lot of thinking about it, but he still didn’t know.

Before breakfast, when most people were still in bed, Neville took a deep breath and tried to work up the courage to ask.

The others stopped talking and looked at him encouragingly.

“Well, uh, you said your brother was like me? I was, er, wondering what you meant. By that,” he finished lamely.

“Oh!” Siobhán smiled back at him. She didn’t talk as much as Fay, but she certainly smiled a lot.

“So my brother was originally my sister, but a couple years ago he told us that he actually was my brother.”  
That was really something you could just do? Hermione had mentioned it, but he didn’t know anyone like that. Siobhán’s brother was, though, so that meant it was actually something real.

“The staircase doesn’t let men up,” Fay chimed in, “but if you aren’t actually a man, then it shouldn’t stop you, right?”

For the second time that week, Neville felt like he was floundering. Only this time, it wasn’t because of Hermione’s rapidfire questioning.

“I guess not… I hadn’t really thought about it…”

But now it was all he could think about. The year was coming to a close soon, and he wouldn’t have friends to talk to about it. Or about anything, really. It would just be him and his grandmother.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione broke into the forbidden corridor and battled Quirrel. There was some confusion over why. Some people said Quirrel was a Death Eater, some said he was the ghost of You-Know-Who, some said he was just some crazy fanatic. He was trying to get the secret to eternal life, or he was trying to raise the dead, or he was trying to kill everyone in the school as revenge. There were a lot of stories going around.

Harry was passed out and Ron had a broken leg, but Hermione was allowed back in the dormitory after being checked over by Madam Pomfrey. For the second time that year, and after making sure no-one was watching, Neville went up the Gryffindor girls’ staircase.

Lavender and Parvati looked at him in surprise, but the others just smiled at him. Hermione looked tired and had her hair up in a silk wrap, but she seemed to be unharmed.

“I was just, er, I wanted to see how Hermione is doing?”

Fay and Siobhán were sitting on the same bed, but they both scooched over to give him some room.

Lavender finally seemed to get over her shock. “We were doing a girls’ night to help her feel better. And also to take care of her hair and skin, just look at the dreadful state of it! She said there was a three-headed dog and a devil’s snare! So, now we're doing some pampering.”

She reached under her bed and pulled out an extra face mask. “Luckily, I have a spare.”

Fay nudged him with her foot.

“Does this mean that next year you’ll be sleeping in the girls’ dorm with us?”

He blushed under the sudden gaze of five eleven- and twelve-year-old girls. “I, er, maybe?”

Siobhán leaned forward suddenly to look him—her—in the eye. “If you’re a girl, do you think you’ll still be going by Neville?”

“Oh, I- I hadn’t really thought of that?”

The other girls looked thoughtful.

“Mayb- maybe Neve? It’s, well, it’s similar?” She felt herself melt into the bed.

Parvati smiled back at him.

“Neve is a nice name.”

**Author's Note:**

> Neville has an anxious stutter. That’s my headcanon. Is it actual canon? Who knows, I haven’t read these books in a long time. And because I’m spite writing this, I refuse to look anything up. Also it's late/early and I'm tired. If anything is glaringly horrible I'll fix it in the morning.
> 
> Okay I lied I spent a bit of time researching Fay Dunbar and her friend. I had no idea that there were another two Gryffindor girls in the Golden Trio’s year?? Why does her friend not have a name?? She's now Siobhán and basically all that we know about her is that she may possibly own a hair dryer (and therefore is Muggle-born) and is a ginger. Basically all we (or I) know is that Fay likes Quidditch but never makes the house team.
> 
> I'm prolly gonna rewrite this at some point but whatever, that's a later issue.


End file.
